There is no better place than wedding for taking great portraits. Why ?
- The bridal party is mostly focused on making the big day a perfect one and therefore they have little time to allocate to posing (in my style of photography especially). They fully rely on my experience to capture the expressions as the day goes by. Which is great because the best portraits you can get are the non-posed ones.
- My fluid and honest reportage style makes the couple concentrate on enjoying the day as if I wasn't there and that is why they choose my approach. Being a good wedding reportage photographer is like being a third eye. You have to know a little bit about the couple beforehand in order to enter the event like if you were part of the audience. Too many photographers only turn up on the day and make people feel uncomfortable, not only the guests but most importantly the bridal party. You cannot expect having a lot of great portraits if you sort of gate crash a wedding even if you are the official photographer. By meeting the couple beforehand and explaining your work you will diffuse an aura which will be know by quite a few people before you do the job. To know as a couple that you hired someone special will make your task much easier and beneficial.- I mostly use an 85mm and 105mm for my single portraits. I do not believe that you can take great portraits either if you are too far or too close from the subject. Those two lenses are perfect to enter circles without being intrusive. They also help to isolate the subject from the background if use at 4 or 5.6 aperture. Use the blur effect created from the semi long lens to create some distance in order to isolate the subject. I personally love the 50mm and 35mm but they are more for situations. You can still take some great portraits though with a 50mm depending on the situation.
- But what makes a good portrait after all? Adequate equipment is required of course, but what matters ultimately are you eye, your brain and social understanding of human behaviours. You can obviously guess what sort of reactions will emerge from such and such traditional format but there numerous opportunities that are simply unrehearsed and genuine. You have to understand how people relate to each other first. That step should anticipated from the prior meeting with the couple who will tell you or express a sentiment towards their closest families. Then you have the close friends who will gather automatically haven't seen each other for a while. You can also sense the moods from each table walking around in the first 15 minutes of the seat down dinner. I have a tip for that. I usually walk around and pretend to shoot by pressing the flash independently if I use film, or by just wasting data with digital. After that first procession people will understand that you will be taking photographs while they are eating, they know the score. Later you will see them being aware of the situation and most of them will play the game by being natural and at their best. That way it's already half of the job done. You only have then to scan the diner area and have eyes and ears in you back to know what is going on at any time.
- When I take pictures during diner I always position myself in the way that I can photograph from 2 or 3 different angles to capture different situations and people. While I wait and try to portrait someone form whom nothing seems to appear I can hear a giggle in my back. I know that the second person is in my sight despite facing opposite direction. I a split seond I turn around and capture that person without her noticing. By doing so you usually impress people for being so quick and generate expression from your first subject which you can then portrait by coming back to your first position.
- Taking a portrait can be a game of mouse and cat. Some people hate having their photograph taken and they let you know it in a blink of an eye. Personally if I know that such person is not so involved in the wedding by being a stranger almost I will give up after three attempts. If the person if important to the story if will do my bets to understand her weakness and to capture her when she expects it the least. Beauty is in the vulnerability after all, when ll the barriers disappear and you feel naked. Some people would say it is being intrusive or misplaced, I would call it beauty.
- By tradition people related to a good portrait when it shows an old or young person. I would say it is easy because their appearance expresses nostalgia in the wrinkles of youth with playfulness. I do take those portraits of course but they are quite easy to get as the first group knows well about what it means or inspires, and the second one is always doubtful and shy. In both cases there is an established dialogue we could long discuss about, but what matters to us here is what is in between. Between 15 and 60 you will find it a bit more difficult to get a grip because there is a sort of wall in general, there is misplaced competition. But it is up to the photographer to make people feel at ease. You have to express by your attitude that you can somehow understand each individual and capture a sort of essence. And you can only do that if you love social/reportage photography and if you have compassion. If you treat your subjects like numbers, you will never get anywhere and every wedding will look the same - distant and uninspired.
